Supreme confidence in face of Domino's effect

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Mozzarella merchants across the city are bracing for an all-out pizza war, with fast food giant Domino's Pizza preparing to unveil dozens of new Melbourne stores faster than you can say "hold the anchovies".

Sixteen new Domino's stores will appear over the next few months as the Brisbane-based company takes control of the Big Daddy's Pizza chain in suburbs such as Flemington, Bundoora, Sunshine, Seaford and Vermont.

But the company is eyeing off a much bigger slice of Melbourne's pizza pie, which already boasts more than 800 parlours.

"We think we'll have about 83 stores over the next four to five years. We've done our homework," said Domino's Australian chief executive Don Meij.

"Yes, Melbourne is a very developed pizza market, more diverse in terms of the style of your pizza places, but it's very underdeveloped from a home delivery perspective."

Mr Meij denied the aggressive approach would force smaller parlours out of business. This is despite the introduction of Domino's shops in Bendigo and Ballarat where a local price war erupted as operators attempted to run it out of town.

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"I'd be surprised if the price of a pizza in Melbourne got too much lower because it's already very competitive," Mr Meij said.

"And I doubt that the smaller operators will go out of business because this market is just too big for us to have that sort of impact."

Mr Meij said Domino's was a slightly different operation to the Pizza Hut and Pizza Haven chains, which came from more of a family restaurant background.

He said Domino's primary aim was to build a reputation as the best home-delivered pizza service in the city.

"We'll get pizzas to the door quicker and hotter than anybody and for the first time ever your driver will arrive with the correct change.

"The other thing is that we offer a choice and variety of pizza that genuinely hasn't existed here yet."